Rural Ontario Institute Fact Sheet Shows Shelter Costs Are Unaffordable for 17% of Rural Households
by Bob Montgomery
A System Data Analyst with the Rural Ontario Institute says their research on housing showed that housing costs were unaffordable for about 17% of rural households.
Danielle Letang says that means those households are spending more than 30% of their income on shelter costs. She adds, the problem is even greater in urban centres where 26% of households are considered unaffordable. Letang also points out those numbers sometimes hide what's going on in individual communities, like the number of jobs that are available, the income level in a specific community, and the number of people in the labour force compared to the number of people who are retired.
It appears that most of the homes in rural communities have enough bedrooms for the size and composition of a household, so the houses are big enough. In fact what they found was that many of the houses in rural communities were actually larger than necessary in that while the houses may be large, the families in rural communities tend to be small. 28% of the houses in rural communities only have one person living in them, and 39% have two people living in them. But, most of the dwellings in rural communities have two to three bedrooms or more, so that can also impact affordability when someone is living in a larger home than they can afford but they don't have anywhere else to go.
Having a mix of housing types and sizes helps to deal with affordability issues, but right now only 14% of dwellings in rural communities are apartments. The rest are single detached houses. She says in urban centres about half of the dwellings are houses and the rest are a more diverse mix.
Letang says what she sees is that more rural communities are building different types of housing to address the housing crisis and they can have a mix of uses with commercial units like shops and restaurants on the ground floor on the main street, and condos or apartments above them, and that also helps develop walkable communities.
